How does your prior knowledge help you better understand “Civil Disobedience”? Give specific examples, and discuss parts of the passage that your pre-reading thought process helped you to understand.

Answer:

Knowing that civil disobedience means peacefully refusing to obey laws considered unjust helped me understand Thoreau’s argument that people should follow their conscience rather than blindly support the government. Prior knowledge that Thoreau opposed slavery and the Mexican-American War also helped explain why he criticized citizens who supported unjust government actions through taxes or passive obedience. Thinking about the title before reading prepared me to recognize that his discussion of individual responsibility and resistance was about acting on moral beliefs.